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Electra gave a slow nod. “But now, tonight, it brings us no closer to Iris.” She set her glass on the table next to the settee and leaned toward him, hands clasped before her. “I want to touch something that he’s touched. We could ask Violet to retrieve something for us. I think she would.”

“Yes.” It was a good thought, and based on the anger he’d seen from Violet Delacourt, a likelihood. “Let us do that in the morning. Or I can call on them myself.”

Her eyes flashed with irritation. “Are you trying to be rid of me, Inspector Pierce?”

“Never.” He smiled and hoped she knew he meant in ways that had nothing to do with this case. “It is only that I have realized how intensely we’ve been working the last two days, morning till night.” He tipped his head as he assessed her. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Yes, but not much. I am quite tired,” she admitted and immediately covered her mouth as she yawned.

When she bent to begin loosening the laces of her boot, he got on his knees in front of her.

“Here, let me.”

“No, Gideon, you needn’t.”

“Please, would you allow me to?”

“Very well,” she said, her voice low.

Slowly and with great care, he unlaced her boot, removed it, and then did the same with the other.

Electra watched him kneeling before her. The sinews of his strong hands shifting as he gently handled the laces of her boots, then removed each one with tenderest care.

A memory came, sharp and vivid. Sharper than many of the images that she saw during sittings. At fifteen, she had twisted her ankle. They were being foolish, and he’d chased her down an alley near their home. There had been a hole in the packed dirt that she hadn’t seen, and she’d stepped in it wrong. Though she’d been a tad taller than him then, before he’d grown a good foot taller than her, he had carried her all the way back home.

He had fussed with ridiculous care, wrapping her ankle as he kneeled before her much as he was now, looking up at her, not dissimilarly, with the same lovely brown eyes, same worry on his face. But now there was something more. Something beyond friendly tenderness. Something like that awe and adoration Cordelia had spoken of. And a flare of heat, attraction. Or perhaps she was feeling that pull and was imagining he did too.

“Feel better?” he asked, one hand still holding her ankle lightly.

“Yes. Very much. Thank you.”

He grinned and released her at the same moment she blurted, “Gideon.”

Rather than stand, he stayed in front of her, sitting back on his haunches. “Yes?”

“You are not alone.”

His brow furrowed. “In what regard?”

“What I mean to say is that…I feel the same.”

His eyes widened. His throat made a little clicking sound, but he said nothing until he finally murmured, “Electra.”

He lifted her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles reverently, and her heart beat so fiercely she thought it might burst from her chest. For a moment, she wondered if she’d said too much. Or perhaps too little. Maybe she should have said nothing at all.

Gideon, watchful of her every response, as he so often was, said, “I know we both have more to say, or perhaps you’ll regret all of this in the morning.” He gave her a wry smile at that. “But you need rest. I want you to take my bed.”

“No—”

“Please, Electra. I won’t have you sleeping on the settee.”

“You don’t have to give me your bed.”

He squeezed lightly at her hand, stroked his thumb across her knuckles. “I was going to make the argument even before your confession. I am sleeping on the settee.”

Electra took in its dimensions with narrowed eyes. “You’ll overhang the end.”

“I won’t. I’ve slept on it before, working late, so tired that I nod off looking at some file or other. Believe me, my back is very familiar with this settee.”